Swampscott Man Pleads Guilty To IRS Fraud Charges

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A Swampscott man who was accused of targeting the Congolese community of Greater Boston and exploiting members of that community for thousands of dollars in inflated tax payments that he diverted to accounts he controlled pleaded guilty to fraud charges in federal court on Thursday.

Boris Shadari, 46, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, three counts of filing a false tax return, three counts of aiding or assisting in filing a false tax return, two counts of theft of government funds, five counts of aggravated identity theft and one count of witness tampering.

Co-conspirator Christian Zynga previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States in October 2021.

Court documents said that starting in 2012 Shadari posed as a tax professional to the Congolese community of Greater Boston, then took customers' tax information to a separate tax company. Shadari was then accused of providing false information regarding the customers' dependents, child care expenses and business income and losses in order to inflate the customers' federal income refunds.

Shadari and Zynga were then accused of then steering those refunds to a combination of the customers' accounts and those over which they had control.

In 2017, documents said Shadari began preparing the returns himself and added false information to the returns to also inflate the refunds due, while failing to report his own income as a tax preparer.

Upon becoming aware of the investigation he is accused of telling one of the taxpayers to lie to investigators about the information in the returns that he had prepared for her and suggested she would owe thousands of dollars back to the IRS, while her immigration status would be in question, if she did not comply with his instructions.

"Boris Shadari, who is himself a member of the Congolese community, grossly exploited hardworking, vulnerable members of the Congolese community in Greater Boston in pursuit of his own personal financial enrichment," United States Attorney Rachael Rollins said. "Today, Boris Shadari stands a convicted felon for his predatory tactics against his own community who believed him to be a trustworthy resource. With this guilty plea, that targeted community gets justice.

"Many immigrant communities seek out professional assistance from individuals that are fluent in the language of their origin. Taxes are hard enough to understand standing alone, if you add a potential language barrier they can be overwhelming. That Shadari threatened immigration consequences to encourage one of his victims to lie to federal authorities is unconscionable. Communities can contact their local taxpayers Assistance Center if they have questions about tax preparers.."

Sentencing is scheduled sentencing for July 19.